Yakuza Games Catch All

Any skill marked with a red circle is kept when classes change. One thing I'll say about this game is that they don't always do a great job of explaining mechanics. The management game is slightly incomprehensible without some outside explanations.

Finally getting started with this series, a couple hours into Yakuza Kiwami now. Loving the story, characters, and atmosphere, but I just flat out suck at this real-time fighting combat. Game seems pretty forgiving so far, so I just hope it doesn't get too technically challenging with the fist-fighting later.

What I finally learned with Kiwami 2 is to save all your weapons for the bosses, and then just haul out on the boss with what weapons you have stored up.

Finally got out of Chapter 5 of Like a Dragon, and uh... really feel like they squandered the potential of what "dungeon" could mean in a modern and urban setting.

I've never played a Yakuza, but I'm intrigued by what I've heard about Like a Dragon, so far. What sort of games would be a good frame of reference for whether I'd like this?

Sleeping Dogs, maybe? The thing that really runs Yakuza games is the general vibe, which is somewhere between a Jackie Chan movie, the Godfather, and, I dunno, Ghostbusters? I don't know that you're getting to get that out of another series. Just Cause kind of flies over that neighborhood on occasion I guess.

LastSurprise wrote:

I've never played a Yakuza, but I'm intrigued by what I've heard about Like a Dragon, so far. What sort of games would be a good frame of reference for whether I'd like this?

Super Mario RPG? That's where the most obvious influence on the combat system comes from. It's not a complete 1-to-1, but you time perfect blocks and special moves for bonus damage. Wandering the city is still a bit Shenmue-style open-world but without as much time wasted.

I think you'd probably dig it.

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I decided to try some of the business management game and screwed up so badly on the first investor's meeting. I feel like there was stuff left unexplained, and with such time pressure I really didn't know what I was doing. I have a feeling there are symbols/color codings that work as weaknesses? Some of the questions were certain colors? I dunno, it was weird. Lots of stuff on screen and not a lot of time to really figure out was going on. That dropped the rank real low, and the investments made in employees and upgrades wasn't really helping. So I decided to just give up.

I liked the rip-off Mario Kart better anyway.

The thing they never explain in the management stuff that is SUPER important is the color system in shareholder meetings:

blue beats red
red beats green
green beats blue

Charisma is how much 'damage' your board deals
Tenacity is their 'hitpoints' (Which makes it slightly worthless if you're playing correctly)
Command cost is how much it costs for a board member to take an action.

I love Adachi's little chest pump after every fight.

JohnKillo wrote:

I love Adachi's little chest pump after every fight.

So many little moments and quirky things I love about this game. Going for food with the party and their faces pop up as Ichi asks if they're hungry, gets me every time.

CptDomano wrote:

I'm in Chapter 4 myself and I can easily say this is my favorite Yakuza game by a long shot already.

Just wrapped up Chapter 13 minutes ago. This is hands down the best Yakuza game of the series and maybe my favorite JRPG as well? What they've been able to accomplish story-wise with Ichiban has been amazing and I absolutely love the switch to the JRPG style.

A few quick tips that'll make the game a lot easier to manage if it hasn't been mentioned already:

1. Do the full management minigame as soon as you can. You absolutely do not need to go out and try to recruit SSR level characters to reach rank 1. Hell, I was using the chicken and the grandma in every board meeting with a couple of other R-ranked low command cost red guys and never had any trouble. Once you're at #1, you'll be getting ¥3,000,000 to put in your pocket for about 5 minutes worth of work. Then you have the ability to buy any upgrade materials and to upgrade the workshop to max level whenever you want.

I used this guide and had no trouble figuring out what to do.

2. Max your bonds with every character (the hostess club helps max out the bonds with the guys quickly) so that everyone gains experience and job points. This is especially useful for #3...

3. When the battle arena opens, do the full 25 (30?) floors. You get a checkpoint every 5 floors, so you can exit, hit up a restaurant to replenish HP/MP and hop back in. You'll get a bunch of materials to upgrade weapons to higher levels in addition to bringing all of your party members (provided you've maxed the bonds) to around level 45, which is where you should be if you want to take on the boss for that chapter. It won't take but an hour or so if you've been upgrading your weapons as much as you can before you require things you can't buy at the cart in the park.

3, 4, 5 and 6 are on their way to PC:

https://twitter.com/RGGStudio/status...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/9iXyXgv.jpg)

In Chapter 9 now and I'm having some mixed feelings on the Job System. I feel like job systems ideally want you switching things up, and given that you have character abilities that you can unlock I decided to swap some jobs out in Chapter 9. However, you take such a hit to your stats, and I had to go looking all over the city for a suitable weapon for one of those classes. I feel like I'd be better off changing back to older classes instead.

I'll also be taking a dive into the sewer dungeon to see what happens, and if I can boost those job levels some.

The story is the real grab, though. I'm tempted to just ignore most of the side content at this point just so I can keep burning through the narrative.

Just wrapped up the game a little bit ago (around 70 hours, but I did a lot of side stuff) and it was just amazing. There are some bits that were a bit off, like having some enemies just be damage sponges even if hitting weaknesses. Outside of that though, there's not a lot I have to complain about.

ccesarano wrote:

In Chapter 9 now and I'm having some mixed feelings on the Job System. I feel like job systems ideally want you switching things up...

It seems that way, but honestly you don't really need to. I kept my core team to basically one job the whole time. There's an area later on in the game where you'll be able to easily level up jobs if you want, but from my experience I was not jumping from job to job at all.

Also, hit up Love Magic for some good weapons that will be able to do decent damage for awhile.

CptDomano wrote:

Also, hit up Love Magic for some good weapons that will be able to do decent damage for awhile.

That was the first place I hit!

......the riding crop was too expensive...

Hmm. Have you done any of the management game yet? That's an easy way to make more than enough money to outfit your party. I also lucked out and had a gold plate that I think I may have found looking under vending machines. That sold for like 100k.

That's the thing I learned about this game. You very quickly hit a plataeu fighting the wandering mobs in the city. You can gain exp/money much quicker by doing the side things. I will say though that it was around chapter 9 when I was experiencing the same stuff as you, so I took a break from the main story to do just the management side story. That alone made the rest of the game much easier because money was no longer an issue.

Oh, and just a heads up for that sewer dungeon. It's a pretty long sequence and you can't save anywhere you want. I can't remember if it's in that dungeon, but if you ever find an enemy that looks like a caveman (Vagabond Investor or something like that), concentrate all of your attacks on him. Use attacks that hit more than once because these enemies are the silver slimes of the game, so you're only doing 1 damage for every hit.

I tried the Management Story, and did real horribly during the first financial partners meeting and then failed to climb anywhere close to where Mr. Investor said he'd keep investing. "Eff that" I thought and went off to do other stuff. I have two saves right now, as I died on a Chapter 9 boss fight:

Spoiler:

Fighting Nanba and Omi Lieutenant together

and might do those side quests and Part-Time Hero missions instead for a dash of grind, but also to swap back to some old jobs that had more healing options. I also only did one floor of the dungeon.

I feel like the side missions, part-time hero, the kart game, and the movie theater mini-game are some great side content, but the dungeon and jobs are where the "first time making an RPG" smudges are starting to show through.

ccesarano wrote:

I tried the Management Story, and did real horribly during the first financial partners meeting and then failed to climb anywhere close to where Mr. Investor said he'd keep investing. "Eff that" I thought and went off to do other stuff.

If you failed to hit the first goal in the management you have locked yourself out of a whole bunch of options that makes a lot of other aspects of the game much more manageable. Reaching the first goal unlocks a new party member who, imo, is one of the stronger characters of the game in addition to cutting off a huge source of money.

I felt like they did a fairly decent job of explaining the system upfront. The main way of gaining share prices early on is winning those shareholder meetings, and the meetings are just a triangle system like pokemon or Fire Emblem. They have the color icons posted everywhere--green beats blue, blue beats red, red beats green. Even when you first pick a shareholder in order to break the shield, it will mark on the screen with a big "Weak!" signal so that you can break the shield and move on to direct damage.

I'm not sure if you have an old save or not but it almost puts the game on easy mode if you complete the management game.

I might give it another go and see if they don't actually lock you out, but the tutorial itself did not verbally explain the triangle system and the UI was drawing attention to a lot of other things as well. It wasn't until after I lost that meeting that I noticed the color coding on the characters and realized the game probably worked with a color coded triangle system. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention somewhere in the instructions but it felt like they skipped the most important part.

Considering I sped through chapter 7 and 8's story missions, I figured I was pretty properly leveled. I didn't realize an optional character was hidden within that minigame, which would certainly help make chapter 9 easier. So I will see if Mr. Investor was honest about dropping support if you don't climb into the top 100 by his deadline.

So to follow up, I did give the Management sim another go and I completely misunderstood what investor man meant when he said "periods". I thought I had one more investor meeting to hit rank 100 and then BOOM! I was screwed. Fortunately I've better figured out the mechanics of the shareholder meeting and the management sim altogether, and am now in the top 10.

I have mixed feelings, because I feel like I've been doing this thing "wrong" but also have been making an easy profit. I only have as many employees as can fill each location, and only occasionally lay-off and rotate employees out. It does help to hold off on some of the later portions of the management sim until you can do some side quests and recruit better talents, including a chimpanzee or gargantuan roomba. However, I still feel like there's supposed to be some "constantly cycling employees out" aspect, because the more you promote people the more expensive even basic care becomes. But promotion and training is probably the best way to boost some stats in order to try and upgrade facilities more.

I'm in Chapter 12, which requires you to scrounge up 3 million yen. I have a feeling they want you to play this sim one way or another. I... honestly feel like I don't even have to do much of anything, save maybe replace one more location with a more profitable one. I've got a decent board meeting team where three out of four have command points less than 10, and only one of them with low persuasion. I've better figured out how to stack combos and when to switch around to boost "damage".

It's an interesting mini-game... but I also feel like it's not quite worth the pay-out. Still, this is perhaps the first Yakuza game where I've felt compelled to see so many of these mini-games through to the end. I'm one rival race away from the last Yakuza Kart Cup (the rival went to "take care of some business" and now I'm on the lookout for a side quest where I go fight for him or something), and I'll be getting number one in the management sim this morning (which will also hopefully get me enough funds to upgrade romance workshop and move onto the next story beat). If there's enough money I might even go take those exam things to boost personality stats.

Even though there's some flaws with the game, it really might be the best Yakuza has ever been.

EDIT: Aaaaaaaaand that Chapter 12 boss fight is one serious difficulty leap.

So before I go to the battle arena to grind levels, is there any recommendation regarding:

Spoiler:

how to weaken Saejima? My standard team is Kasuga, Eri, Saeko, and Jin, and I use Eri's Photoblink or inkblot often in battles. When Saeko has a chance, I have her use Sly pose to drop enemy attack. But by time you're fightimg Majima and Saejima, I need her healing constantly (I basically found Idol to be a necessity class in this game).

I'd really rather not grind in the Battle Arena if I could help it, but man, we're talking hits powerful enough to basically knock multiple people out at a time.

ccesarano wrote:

So before I go to the battle arena to grind levels, is there any recommendation regarding:

Spoiler:

how to weaken Saejima? My standard team is Kasuga, Eri, Saeko, and Jin, and I use Eri's Photoblink or inkblot often in battles. When Saeko has a chance, I have her use Sly pose to drop enemy attack. But by time you're fightimg Majima and Saejima, I need her healing constantly (I basically found Idol to be a necessity class in this game).

I can't really remember what level I was when I got to that point, but...

Spoiler:

I want to say I was equal to them? I burned through the battle arena though and that easily got me close to their level. It was nice being able to step out every 5 levels to heal and replinish any items, then pop back in and do the next 5 levels.

Even still, that fight can be SUPER rough. It took me a couple of times to get through it. The main thing I concentrated on was taking Majima out immediately after Saejima joins to prevent their extreme attack.

My party was Kasuga (Hero), Eri (Office Worker), Joon-Hi (Hitman), and Saeko (Idol). I also would tag between Eri and Namba as needed. My priorities went like this:

1. Make sure Kasuga uses his Peerless Resolve move. This prevents him from dying if he gets hit by that extreme move.
2. Joon-Hi should use Poison shot on Majima. This just helps whittle away the HP since both bosses are damage sponges
3. Saeko should be healing anyone who got hit by an attack. Or using the party heal if multiple people are hurt. If everyone is healthy, then Sly Pose to drop the defense.
4. Eri can use the inkblot to drop their evasion and accuracy. Sometimes you'll get lucky and attacks will just miss.
5. Tag Namba in for Eri and use his fire attacks against Majima since he's weak to fire. Once Majima is done, switch Eri back in.

Interspersed in there I would attack the bosses, but the above is what I was making sure to do and no one in my party ever really had any trouble. I will say that when Majima's dopplegangers show up, just concentrate on those because there's a point where Majima won't actually lose health until Saejima comes in.

These later boss fights kind of just turn into a war of attrition, unfortunately. So, as long as you can keep your party alive each turn you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Make sure you're full up on all the recovery items, specifically anything that restores MP.

Hope that helps!

Yeah, seems about right with what I read in a guide.

I'll be watching a stream I suppose while grinding out that for a while. It's weird though, I completed 12 floors of the battle arena already but it didn't seem to activate a checkpoint. We'll see if I can do it in one go. I'll probably want to swap out my "B Team" as well, just to make sure they're not super far behind.

There isn't a specific checkpoint thing that pops up when you beat a 5th floor. I think becore the fight the robot assistant says something about about it to indicate that after winning you can leave the arena and then come back to start at the checkpointed levels. You really don't see the checkpoints until you leave the arena fully (by going on the elevator opposite of where the robot is standing) and try to get back in. Then the robot will ask you where you want to start.

Yeah, been grinding it out and discovered that. The phrasing is really odd. The robot tells you that certain floors let you checkpoint, but doesn't specify when you're on a checkpointed floor (though I think it's always the floor after he tells you?). When you prepare to leave, it always tells you that you'll have to restart at the 1st floor checkpoint. It's not until you leave and return that you'll see the different checkpoints.

Five more floors to go. We'll see if I feel like going again to boost the B-team, though it might not really be worth it in the end.

I’m getting Yakuza like a dragon today. Best Buy had it for $35. I’m pretty new to Yakuza games, I played a couple hours of Yakuza 0 but bounced off, due in a large part to not really digging the combat. I’m hoping I’ll like the turn based combat better.

Anything I should know going in? Any tips on things to do early or stuff to make sure not to miss?

Make sure you have a nice big bowl of popcorn for the first 6 hours or so. It's mostly cutscenes, and they were totally excellent.

I'm now king of cans. Don't be too jealous.

You dropped this, king:

IMAGE(https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/12960516.png)

In other news, suggestions for class/jobs changes just opened up. I sorta want to go back to Ichi's freelancer job but the choices..

This game is Japanese-ass rpg. I didn’t not expect that but I’m digging it. Just started chapter 4, so things have been mainly cutscenes and constrained options. I’m looking forward to things opening up. My only complaint is how it’s uses those stupid mannerism of jrpg’s like persona. People have such weird and exaggerated reactions. Someone says something a little unexpected and there is a huge shocked face with an accompanied sound effect. I wish the dialogue and responses were a little more realistic.